Five Times Courfeyrac Lost His Hat
by AMarguerite
Summary: Exactly what it says on the tin.


1. Courfeyrac had to wear a top hat to go see some of his Parisian great-aunts. He did not like his hat nor did he like his aunts, who were awful and wore too much perfume and who said mean things to his mother and who would not let him climb the trees in the gardens, even though there were some _awfully _good ones for climbing.

"Oh, did you have to bring the child here? At the very least, he looks like a gentleman, but can he truly behave like one? I personally never dealt with my children until after they had finished school," prattled on a particularly frightening old lady who wore panniers and enough white face paint to pass as a ghost. Courfeyrac sullenly crammed a cake into his mouth. "How old is he now, my dear?"

"Seven," answered Courfeyrac's mother.

"And three-quarters," corrected Courfeyrac, though a mouthful of cake.

"Such a rude little boy, one never corrects a lady," said the aunt, rather sharply. "Or speaks with one's mouth full. How poorly raised!" Courfeyrac's mother wilted. She was a devotee of Rousseau and had taken on Courfeyrac's education herself. "You had really better send him off to boarding school, before you utterly ruin him. And ah, I must call upon my friend the marquise she had four sons, all perfectly behaved and favorites at court. I will give you the name of the school she sent her sons to, I am sure your little one could use a course in proper manners. I shall have the butler show you out. Now, my little savage-" sticking an overpowdered cheek in front of Courfeyrac's lips "-a kiss for your great aunt?"

Courfeyrac smooshed masticated cake onto her cheek and ran out of the room, his top hat flying off behind him.

2. At boarding school, one of the older boys had recently become a viscount. He had gone off to his grandfather's funeral an ordinary bully that the younger boys disliked and had arrived again in his own personal carriage with a coat of arms on the door. A number of the students paused and took off their hats, as they would for the Headmaster. Courfeyac and his circle were set on treating the bully like any other boy and so cheerfully ignored the viscount's arrival in favor of their impromptu game of Kick-the-ball, which had no clear rules or any real way to win, but involved a lot of running back and forth across the courtyard and kicking things.

During one run, someone grabbed Courfeyrac by the shoulder, whirled him around, and knocked off his hat. It was the viscount. Courfeyrac immediately bristled. "What did you do that for?"

"Show some respect for your betters," snapped the viscount.

"If you were my better, I would," said Courfeyrac.

He had to say thirty Our Fathers and twenty Ave Marias for breaking the nose of a viscount in the subsequent fight, and also had to write home for a new hat, but Courfeyrac thought it was worth it.

3. At an hunting retreat that otherwise bored him to tears, Courfeyrac befriended his hostess's daughter, a charming, well-read blonde with a Northern accent and a husband in his sixties. His father, seeing this, had been extremely pleased and given Courfeyrac some very discreet advice that, for once, Courfeyrac was more than glad to follow.

Said advice also included ways to avoid said sixty-four-year-old husband by leaving all of one's clothes in an easy-to-grab pile by the bed and knowing how to navigate the servants' quarters. It did work, except that Courfeyrac lost his hat somewhere and could not find it in the servants' staircases. When he at last bounded down the stairs to where everyone had assembled before trooping off to the stables, he was still bare-headed.

Courfeyrac's father frowned. "Where is your hat?"

Courfeyrac did not know quite what to say, as his hostess's daughter walked in at that moment, Courfeyrac's hat set on a jaunty angle on her blonde curls, and a floating, gauze veil pinned onto it.

"What a lovely new hat," said the hostess, with a smile. "Don't you agree, Monsieur my son-in-law?"

"Rather too mannish," harrumphed the husband.

Courfeyrac's father could not quite hide his grin.

4. Courfeyrac was not entirely sure why they were protesting, but there was a crowd of people shouting positive things about the Charter and negative things about Charles X, so he cheerily joined in and marched with everyone else. He made friends with the people shouting around him- a few students, one very excited journalist and a wary baker who told Courfeyrac to watch out for policemen.

Courfeyrac faithfully kept an eye out for policemen, but did not keep a good enough eye out for monarchists who threw rocks. When the protest disintegrated into a street fight, Courfeyrac emerged unscathed... save for his hat, which had disappeared in the melee. Courfeyrac felt that this was an acceptable first casualty in a fight against absolutism.

5. Courfeyrac had a very good reputation around the Law School. Most people knew _of _Courfeyrac, if they did not know him personally, and those who did know him tended to like him. Courfeyrac was enormously pleased by this and, when near the Luxembourg, was continuously raising his hat to people who knew him or called out his name.

One particularly brisk day in November, a gust of wind caught Courfeyrac's hat, just when he was raising it to one of his favorite waitresses, and cheerily bore it off towards the Law School. Courfeyrac swore and began chasing after it, followed by a ripple of laughter from all the students going to and from class. One student, with distractingly blond hair whipping around his face in the breeze, noticed the hat flying by and indifferently reached up and grabbed it.

"I am entirely indebted to you!" Courfeyrac exclaimed, skidding to a halt in front of him and taking the hat back. Courfeyrac put it on his head again and began, "It was very kind- _dammit!_" The wind bore his hat away again, this time to be trampled by a carriage.

"I suppose," said the other student, with a hint of a smile, "that this is a sign we ought not to stand on ceremony."

Courfeyrac tore his eyes away from the trampled bit of mud where he assumed his hat to be. "I suppose so. I'm Courfeyrac."

"Enjolras," said the other student, holding out his hand. "It's a pleasure, citizen."


End file.
